Inactive subscribers. A term that an email marketer knows all too well. These are the people who have displayed a decline in engagement by not opening or clicking on your emails. So what could be the reason for these subscribers to go quiet? Well, there are many reasons (which is a whole blog topic in itself), but the most common one is a lack of interest in the content of your emails. But regardless of the reason, you should always have a re-engagement tactic in place, so that you can put yourself back in good standing with your subscribers.

In this blog I will outline a 5-step guide for re-engaging inactive subscribers.Continue Reading >>

As the number of available marketing tools and platforms continues to grow exponentially, it becomes increasingly more difficult for businesses to outline a cohesive marketing strategy. In my opinion, no matter the number of tools and platforms available the core of the marketing strategy remains the same. Raise awareness, stay in front of potential customers, retain purchasing customers, gather more referrals and measure your results.

It’s easy.

Now the abundance of tools really becomes a question of, “Which one is best for me? Which tool can I utilize at each step of my marketing strategy?”

For this blog, I want to look at each individual piece of a standard marketing strategy and identify some easy ways to accomplish your goals along the way.Continue Reading >>

The feedback you have provided has allowed us to make some awesome changes that we know everyone will like. These newest features will allow you to send better emails, save time doing it, and get more creative with the emails you send.

When you log into your account next time, you will see some new features that have been added to the platform. Some of the highlighted features include:Continue Reading >>

An email address can say a lot about your businesses credibility. For example, would you be more inclined to respond to an email from yourbusinessname@nullaol.com or ownersname@nullbusinessname.com? Chances are, you would choose the email address with the registered email address, because you would know right away who the email came from.

In my experience, I’ve seen many businesses go the route of using a free email service instead of paying for a registered email address, because well, it’s free. But what many of these businesses aren’t aware of, are the negative effects that a non-registered email address can have on their brand.

If you are thinking of or currently using a free email service for your business, here are some of the disadvantages you should be aware of:Continue Reading >>

One of the most frequent questions I hear in regards to the amount of reporting features our email platform offers is, “What does it all mean?”

Everyone likes seeing high open rates, and everyone enjoys the perks of seeing an uptick in traffic due to email click-throughs. But what can the other metrics tell you, and how can you apply that information to boost the coveted open and click-through rates?Continue Reading >>

Email marketing is known for its ease of use, low entry cost and ubiquitous nature of being able to send anything at anytime. As technology continues to break down the barriers that have commonly kept business owners from adopting their own email marketing strategies, we see more and more first time users on our platform. Along with the increase in users we see an increase in users who are not utilizing some of the more advanced tools that we have available.

One of these advanced features I want to talk about today is the use of drip campaigns as an effective tool to move your potential customers up your marketing ladder. In this blog I’ll share my personal marketing ladder and the drip campaign strategy I use to support this ladder. Keep in mind that this is only one drip campaign strategy among hundreds and thousands and I encourage you to test and develop one that works specifically for you and your business. Continue Reading >>

It has been said that the attention span of an average human is about 8-seconds. So when it comes to sending emails to your subscribers, it’s apparent that you don’t have much time to impress them; they are either going to take action with your email or send it to the trash folder in the blink of an eye.

While many factors come into play with subscriber engagement, if the images in your email aren’t optimized for speed or to grab the reader’s attention, there is a good chance you will lose your audience.

Here are some effective ways to optimize and use images more effectively in your next email marketing campaign.Continue Reading >>

Creating valuable and creative content on a daily basis is a constant point of emphasis for us here at FireDrum. In 2014 we posted hundreds of pieces of information across social media, email, and our blog. We’ve provided tips, ideas, and actionable takeaways for a wide variety of internet marketing topics, tailoring our content specifically to what you’ve responded to.

In the spirit of the coming new year, we’ve rounded up FireDrum’s top 10 blog posts of 2014 (sorted by Pageviews):Continue Reading >>

Today we’re going to talk about something very near and dear to me – making money. More specifically, leveraging email marketing to convert interested buyers into revenue.

One of the most common questions I hear at FireDrum is, “How can I turn a list of email addresses into customers?” Because let’s be honest, that should be the goal of all email marketing, right?

I want to share a very basic outline of what my typical email marketing sales funnel looks like. I’ve been utilizing this across several industries, several lists and I’ve seen consistent and positive results.

The most important takeaway from this blog is that each item has only one job. What I mean by that is the email subject lines only job is to get the user to open the email. The body of the email is to build value around the call-to-action, the call to action’s only job is to get visitors to the landing page and so on. You will see a notable drop off in conversions when you start assigning multiple jobs to an individual item.

Marketing automation is an essential part to anyone’s email marketing strategy, because it gives insight into your subscriber’s lifecycle and allows you to market to them properly. One effective form of marketing automation is triggered emails.

For those who are not familiar, triggered emails are automated responses based on a specific action taken (or not taken) by a consumer or a meaningful change in their behavior or profile. These timely, relevant and personalized responses create an invitation to advance the communication between a marketer and their customer.

A great example of a triggered email happens when a customer is on an eCommerce site and leaves items in their shopping cart without checking out. That company has the opportunity to send a triggered email to remind them to complete their order.Continue Reading >>